Help Support November 2005 Dear Brothers: The new Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation is off to a robust start! Please join me in generously supporting our 2005 year-end matching gift campaign. Three Cornell Alpha Delts have agreed to match the first $16,000 raised from our brotherhood in support of our new tax-exempt foundation! If we raise this amount by December 31, we will be able to immediately channel $32,000 into needed repairs at 777 Stewart Avenue. Your response at this critical point will have an immediate impact on our new effort to preserve the Alpha Delta Phi legacy at Cornell. A matching gift challenge lends urgency to any appeal for funds, but there are other reasons why we cannot delay. Although Alpha Delta Phi is still in the upper echelon of Cornell University fraternities, we can no longer boast of offering the finest facilities for living and learning. The infrastructure of the Phi, our home in Ithaca, is way past due for a much-needed extensive renovation. We need every alumnus to make a commitment to donate annually so that we can complete a full renovation of the Phi at a cost that is currently estimated to be at least $2 million. Funds raised in the past three years, totaling nearly $300,000, have made a big difference but have only scratched the surface of our rehabilitation needs. We have replaced bathrooms in the basement, the Flat, the Rotunda, and the third floor. We have renovated the basement into a multipurpose social room (after the Ithaca Fire Department required the removal of living quarters). We have eliminated doors from the second-floor hallway into interior rooms to create truly single rooms for today's privacy-seeking students. We have purchased furniture and replaced doors, locks, light fixtures, and electrical wiring. We have also resurfaced the driveway, increased the number of parking spaces, added retaining walls, and improved outside drainage. Not all improvements are glamorous, but we have allocated resources to the projects with critical needs. However, we still have the steepest part of our journey ahead of us. We need to renovate or revision the deteriorating Goat House, repoint the entire exterior stone face of the Phi, overhaul the aging kitchen, upgrade the electrical grid, mend interior walls, restore wood paneling, replace window casements, repair chimneys, replace significant portions of the roof, update house furnishings, refurbish leaking and sagging gutters, and install thousands of feet of new flooring. Even with all the ongoing activity at the Phi, we have fallen far behind other housing alternatives on campus and in Collegetown. As a result of the Cornell Residential Initiative, all freshmen now live in new dorms on North Campus, and the first two new West Campus upperclass dorms are open. In many respects, the Phi now falls short in comparison to the accommodations at these new facilities, yet the cost of each is very similar to what our actives pay for their room and board. Primary responsibility for the legacy of Alpha Delta Phi at Cornell University is in the hands of its dedicated living alumni, who now number 960. We need to donate the funds necessary to give the actives a safer and more effective environment for living and learning. As we update the Phi, the actives become more compelled to take pride in and better care of the physical plant and house appearance. It will be then that our house will again become a key selling point for attracting future brothers. The board of directors has witnessed how powerful improvements to the Phi can be in supporting rush, increasing academic achievement, strengthening undergraduate leadership, rejuvenating the literary program, and making undergraduates eager to protect the Phi from carelessness and neglect. It has been more than 30 years since any significant construction project has been undertaken at the Phi. That is a long time for any house to go without vital structural renovation, let alone a fraternity house that has been the home to hundreds of brothers and has hosted thousands of guests for special events and parties. In past years, one major factor limiting gifts has been the absence of a tax-advantaged mechanism for channeling funds into the Phi. If you have read the most recent Cornell Alpha Delt newsletter, you have learned the news of the establishment and federal approval of the Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation. Please join me in supporting the first efforts of this new foundation, which will focus on improvements to 777 Stewart Avenue. Other Cornell fraternities, particularly those in Cornell-owned houses such as Sigma Phi, Phi Gamma Delta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Delta Upsilon, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Kappa Sigma, have been able to provide a mechanism for channeling tax-deductible donations into bricks-and-mortar improvements for their chapter houses. Now Alpha Delts can enjoy tax advantages for financial gifts to the fraternity. Through the Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation, an IRS tax-exempt 501(c)(3) federally designated public charity, donors can support our chapter house with donations to underwrite much-needed renovations, as well as supporting the operating costs of designated “educational” areas within the chapter house. In addition, the Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation can provide financing of capital improvements to the chapter house. The foundation can also fund scholarships and awards for undergraduates and faculty members. Some fraternities have resorted to offering coffee mugs, jacket pins, calendars, and other giving incentives. At this time we have the best incentive of all: three brothers' promise to double the value of every dollar we contribute up to $16,000. My hunch is that brothers understand the needs of the Phi and have been waiting for the right time to make a meaningful gift. Now is the time, and your gift is now tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. I want to extend a huge THANK YOU and XAIPE to every alumnus who has a made donation in the recent past, as well as to our matching donors. All of our donors recognize the importance of perpetuating our active chapter. However, with our matching gift challenge in place right now, we beseech donors who have already contributed to give again and brothers who have not yet made a gift to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Whether you're a life member, someone who has been waiting for a rainy day to give, or a recent graduate with limited resources, the Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation needs your help. A gift of any size will be worth twice what you send and will move us a step closer to our preservation goals. Aristotle wrote that virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose. It is my sincere belief that a gift today to the Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation would be an act that would bestow virtue upon both the donor and the fraternity. Thank you for your support of Alpha Delta Phi at Cornell University as part of our ongoing efforts to address the needs of today while planning for the challenges of tomorrow. The new Cornell Star & Crescent Foundation will lead the charge in making sure that our beloved fraternity house and the literary and cultural traditions of the Phi will endure. With gratitude for your gift, Howard B. Schaffer '90 $500 could be $2000 with both an employer matching gift and the Alpha Delt matching gift. Your employer may have a matching gifts program! Many corporations will match their employees' non-profit contribution dollar for dollar. Make sure to find out if your employer does this; your gift of $500 could actually be $1,000 with a corporate matching gift!
After graduating Cornell in 1982, Peter took his NROTC commission in the Navy and went to sea for a few years. He deployed to the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Atlantic operating areas, chasing (then) Soviet submarines. He later took an assignment ashore in Puerto Rico where he reports perfecting his tan and drink-mixing talents while still holding a steady job in the Navy.Following the Navy, he moved to Boston and worked in several large Banks before joining his current company, Welch & Forbes LLC (founded in 1838).His firm manages investments, mostly for the well-to-do and he has now been an investment portfolio manager for 12 years.He became a partner at the firm four years ago. “I am likely to remain until they cart me off,” he reports. In addition to his investment responsibilities for more than $300 million in assets, he directs the firm’s marketing literature production.Through that role he often works with graphic layouts and design.“When the opportunity arose to design a new logo for the foundation, I put that skill to work,” he said. “The logo chosen was one of the first that came to mind, emphasizing the green and white of the fraternity’s colors with a nod to Cornell’s Big Red.” In 1999, Peter met Lauren Smith and they married in 1994 in Newport, RI, with a handful of Alpha Delt brothers attending.They have twin boys, Alex and Teddy, now 8, who Peter hopes someday will follow his footsteps to Cornell and Alpha Delta Phi.“To all of my brothers cast far and wide, as well as to those that we have lost over the last 20 years, I say Xaipe and God bless,” said Peter. He can be reached at pbrown@welchforbes.com. The foundation board expresses its gratitude to Peter and the other brothers who took time to design logos and images for the new foundation. These contributions of time, energy, and creativity are extremely valuable for uniting brothers behind the goals of the new foundation.
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